Tag Archives: disability

Meet Our Candidates: Tom Tronsdal for Tucson City Council Ward 3

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The Arizona primary election will be held on August 29, 2017. Reproductive health care access has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who have shown strong commitment to reproductive justice. In order to vote in the primary election, you must have been registered to vote by July 31. Early voting begins on August 2. Make your voice heard in 2017!

[T]om Tronsdal, in his first run for office, threw his hat in the ring for the race for Tucson’s Ward 3 shortly after the New Year. He is a longtime resident of Ward 3, which covers northwest Tucson. Mr. Tronsdal is also an impassioned advocate for people affected by neurological disabilities, and, inspired by his son, has raised thousands of dollars for brain research. Mr. Tronsdal hopes to build on the accomplishments of Ward 3’s departing representative, Karin Uhlich, by focusing on economic growth, including investments in a local employment-ready workforce; public safety, including resources for domestic violence victims, immigrants, and refugees; and support for children and education.

“Deciding whether, when, and under what circumstances you choose to become a parent is one of the most important decisions a person can make.”

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona announced its endorsement of Tom Tronsdal early last month, and he generously took time for an interview with us on July 31, 2017, to tell us more about his background and his campaign.

Tell us a little about your background.

I am a proud pro-choice Democrat who has called Tucson home for over three decades. Raised by a single mother in the heart of Ward 3, I went on to earn a degree in disability law and currently own and operate Canyon Fence Company. Obstacles in my early childhood and raising a special-needs son with my wife, Amanda, give me a unique understanding of the importance of accessibility and opportunity for all Ward 3 residents. Continue reading →

The 26th Amendment at 45: Bringing More Voters to the Fight for Reproductive Rights

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Image of a button showing support for a lower voting age from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

When the question of same-sex marriage went before the Supreme Court in the summer of 2013, it was clear that millennials, the nation’s youngest adults, had already reached their verdict; 66 percent were in favor of recognizing it, putting them among the most supportive demographic groups in the U.S.

That same year, millennials were in the spotlight in another fight for social justice. Refusing to accept their university’s mishandling of sexual assault reports, two survivor activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fought back with federal complaints. Their activism turned up the pressure on their institution and evolved into the founding of the organization End Rape on Campus, or EROC, a networked movement against sexual assault that linked survivor activists and other advocates for change on college campuses throughout the U.S. Following EROC’s founding, supportive faculty formed Faculty Against Rape, or FAR, bringing the movement to more stakeholders in campus communities.

Young voters have the power to shape political futures.

Jennings Randolph, a Democratic member of Congress from 1933 to 1947 (and later a senator from 1958 to 1985), said the nation’s youth “possess a great social conscience, are perplexed by the injustices in the world and are anxious to rectify those ills.” With that faith in the collective power of young Americans, Randolph made it his mission, beginning in 1942, to introduce legislation that would lower the voting age to 18. Historically it had been 21. His hopes, though, would not be realized until decades later, in the 1970s.

The United States entered the 1970s bearing the toll of what became one of the longest and most unpopular wars in its history. By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, 2.5 million Americans had served in the conflict, a quarter of them because of the draft. More than 58,000 of them lost their lives. Continue reading →

Where the Revolution Continues: Inside the Second Annual Body Love Conference

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A speaker at the 2014 Body Love Conference. Photo: Body Love Conference

The Body Love Conference debuted last year, riding on Tucsonan Jes Baker’s breakthrough success in body-positive blogging. Baker’s dating woes — and how they affected the way she saw herself in the mirror — sent her on a personal journey of body acceptance. Before long, the personal became political as she launched a blog called The Militant Baker, a place where could share with others what she had learned on her own journey. The Militant Baker soon reached a readership of about 20,000 — and then nearly a million as some of her content went viral.

We are maligned for wanting control over our bodies.

But Baker, along with a team of like-minded advocates and volunteers, knew that the movement needed something else as well: a safe but more public space for seeing, feeling, and asserting body love, where empowering words could translate into empowering actions. The Body Love Conference was their brainchild, and their months of preparation to make it happen paid off on April 5, 2014, with an event that drew more than 400 people.

The momentum continued this year with the second annual Body Love Conference, held at the Pima Community College West Campus on June 6. The message was the same, but a lot of things were different this year. Baker passed the torch to the other BLC volunteers so that she could turn her attention to her first book, slated for release on October 27. Meanwhile, the BLC team decided on a smaller, regional conference, so that they, too, could focus on something further out: a national “headliner” conference in 2016. Continue reading →